>> good morning, everyone and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors budget and finance subcommittee meeting for april tenth, 2013, my name is farrell and i will be chairing and also joined by avalos and mar and the vice chair is out sick today. i would like to thank the members of sfgtv for covering this meeting today as well as the clerk of the committee mr. victor young. mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> yes, silence all cell phones and electronic devices and complete the speaker cards and any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will be on the 16th april, board of

agenda. >> could you call item number one? >> item number one, resolution approving the acquisition of 30 aviggation easements from the various property owners of the san mateo county required for the san francisco international airport's notice insulation program. >> we have john up dike director of real estate. >> it is the approval of the acquisition of 30 avigation easements within a certain noise insulation program, run by the san francisco airport in san mateo county and so the item seeks your approval of those easements as well as the findings relative to the general plan of conformity. this is a long-standing program

as outlined very thoroughly by the budget analysts that has been in action for over 20 years. and this is a really a case of a bit of catch up with some change in ownership where the airport has approached new owners within the area, where they are eligible for noise insulation and in return for a easement which provides a senator to the airport that there will be no restrictions for the flight path that effects their homes and brings the decibel levels to a more manageable level in the homes. and the pricing here, the easement itself is a no-cost easement and of course the program related to the homes that are improved as a result of the easement and this is a federal funded program for the

federal aviation administration, they provide 80 percent and 20 percent is in the fund that is approved for the airport as noted in the analyst report. one item that i would like to call your attention, we do want to make a slight amendment and if i could have you turn to page 2, lines one through five, where in we referenced the director of planning letter of general planning of conformity and we did fail, however, to note that we also seek and will provide an amendment for mr. young, to provide the adoption of findings that this project is exempt from the review under class one and so we would like to make that amendment. >> okay. >> happy to answer any questions that you might have and i am also joined by the colleagues from the airport if you have any questions about the program as a whole. >> thank you, mr. up dike, we have the budget report.

and thank you. >> mr. chair, and supervisor avalos, on page 5 of our report, we point out that it is shown in table two, the total cost to complete the sound proofing from aircraft noise in conjunction with these 30 avigation easements acquired by the airport from residential property owners was $1 million $494,924 as shown in table three on page 5 and the airport has paid $324,000 or $861 or 29.1 percent of the balance of the costs of $1,489,240 will come from the federal agency, it was previously appropriated by the board of supervisors and we recommend that you approve this resolution. >> thank you very much. any questions? >> i would like to open it up

to the public. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> okay, so we have a motion to accept the amendment as proposed and we can do that without objection and a motion to move item number four to the full board without opposition, as amended. >> mr. clerk, could you call item two. >> ordinance waving the fee required by the public works code for the temporary street space occupantcy within a certain designated streets in the city and county of san francisco on saturday may 11, and saturday may 18 rkts 2013 as a part of the small business week sidewalk sales. >> this is something that i sponsor along with the majorty of the board of supervisors and part of the small business week that is coming up and the tradition in the city and county of san francisco and it

is great for the residents and community and also our small business and so i want to thank you for being here. >> thank you. supervisor farrell and avalos and thank you to supervisor farrell for sponsoring the legislation this year. small business week is may 13, to the 18th and this is our 9th year. and sponsoring this office, and sponsoring the sidewalk sale, or the sidewalk incroachment and this is the 7th year. and the theme is shaping our communities and so, our neighborhood commercial corridors are very much a part about our small businesses, shaping our communities. and so, we have provided information in terms of just which each merchant corridor the number of blocks that will

be participating and needing this sidewalk encroachment fee waiver and the cost and i am happy to take any questions and just really want to express my appreciation to the board of supervisors for continually supporting this fee waiver for the merchants. >> thank you. >> no questions? >> thank you very much. >> at this time we will open it up to public comment and anybody want to publicly comment on item number two? >> seeing none, public comment is closed. we move item two forward for recommendation to the full board and we can do so without objection. >> mr. clerk, could you call item three? >> item number three, resolution approving the issuance of the tax exempt obligations by the kaeft enterprise development authority in an aggregate principal amount not-to-exceed $9 million finance and refinance various capital facilities owned by the progress foundation. >> we will hear from the controller's office of public

demands. >> good morning, members of the budget and finance committee my name is (inaudible) and this approves the tax exempt of interest and it is a refunding of prior obligations for savings. and the resolution acknowledges that the public hearing was held by our office and should we have any questions on the project itself there are representative to answer the questions. there is no fiscal payment for the city and the city is not responsible for the repayment on those. >> thank you for the clarifications. any questions? >> we will open it up to public comment? does anybody want to comment on item three? step up. okay. public comment is closed. we move to item three forward with recommendation and we can do so without objection. >> could you call item four? >> resolution urging the retirement board of the employee retirement system to

divest from the publicly traded fossil fuel companies. >> okay. sponsored by supervisor avalos. thank you, this is a resolution that i have the co-sponsorship with supervisors eric mar and breed and i want to thank them for their support and this has come from a lot of organizizing that is happening in the bay area nationally around climate change and i want to thank 350.org, climate nexus and the student groups that have been working on this resolution and the divestment strategy around the nation. and it is a critical time that we really address immediately, the needs of curbing climate change in the nation and around the world. to start off i want to talk about some of the math that is involved. it is easy to get kind of bogged down in the science of climate change but there is super math that we can boil

this down to. the scientific consensus is that global warming f it exceeds 2 degrees c, it will have catastrophic consequences for all habitats across the globe. almost every government has agreed through the copenhagen accord and we have raised the temperature by 0.8 degrees c which has caused more damage than scientists expected. the sea ice has declined by a third and the acidity of the ocean has increased by 30 percent and we are seeing dramatic climate events that happen every year. to prevent 2 degrees of c of warming we can burn no more than 656 giga tons of carbon dioxide and that is a billion. fossil fuel corporations currently have 2800 giga tons

in their reserves, so comparing 565 to the total reserve is 2800 giga tons and that means that we need to keep 80 percent of the current fossil fuel reserves in the ground. if we do not do that, we will see the dramatic increases in temperatures and we know what will happen if that happens. we currently are using about 31 giga tons of carbon every year. at our current pace we will burn through the 565 limit in 16 years, meaning in 16 years we will have raised the earth's temperature by 2 degrees c, and if we go on beyond that we will be raising the surface temperature by much more than that. clearly, action needs to be taken. and divesting from fossil fuel is not just the moral thing to do it is physically responsible, as the impacts become more severe, the governments around the world will be forced to act to restrict carbon emissions. the valuations of the stocks

are largely based on the reserves, the current valuation do not account for the risks of future regulations, a recent report by the bank argues that they are limited to burning one-third of their reserves they could lose up to 40 to 60 percent of their market capitalization, and the effects of climate change become more severe, the stocks will become riskier and we question whether it makes sense that we tie our retirement benefits to the fossil fuel companies as we see in a much more and more, uncertainty in the fossil fuel market. divestment is growing, as a growing movement being led by a lot of college students. i am sure that there are many in this room today. students with more than 300 college campuses across the country are pursuing divestment including san francisco state university the university of san francisco and uc berkeley in the bay area, four colleges

have enacted the divestment policies they are the college of the atlantic, sterling college, (inaudible) and the mayor of seattle is p pursuing divestment, vermont, and it is co-sponsored by 25 state representative and four senators in the state of vermont. divestment is the important compliment to the climate work and others happening. locally we have succeeded in significantly reducing our emissions and close to launching the clean power. california is moving for ward with the implementation with ab 32, environmentalists are finding to stop the keystone pipeline and there are hundreds and thousands of people to protest the pipeline when president obama came to san francisco. but government action is not enough. the fossil fuel companies are the root of our climate problems, in fact the companies have tried very, very hard to

make sure that the debate and discourse about the climate action is something that is not scientific at all and it is based on things that do not exist or are not measurable by science. we can exercise the power of our pocket books by divesting our retirement fund from the fossil fuel companies. the retirement board can divest without effecting the fund security or yield. the staff of the retirement board estimates that out of the 15.6 billion only one billion is invested in securities, either incorrect or correct investments such as mutual funds. we are not calling for immediate divestment, the resolution calls for seizing new fossil fuels and divesting within five years, this gives the retirement board to divest in a responsible way, as mentioned above, the hsbc bank, argues that the stocks will become increasingly risky as the climate change excel rates.

they are studying how can be done without increasing risk, the apario group, calculated that divesting from fossil fuels will increase the portfolio risk by 0.01 percent such as the fund, the russell 3000 fund and they will respond that. >> they will expand on this at public comment. >> this is now on the investment policy, the san francisco retirement board has a policy that can serve as a model for other pension funds, in fact the seattle mayor's office asked us for a copy as they work on it for the fossil fuel companies. it has been applied to south africa and tobacco, three levels of eninvolvement. level one calls for citizenship for securities owned by the retirement fund and level two

calls for the fund to use the shareholder influence to promote social rights and interests and level three calls for full divestment. models on the policies leveled two engagement our resolution urges the retirement board to contact the fund managers for funds that include the fossil fuel companies to request that they be excluded from the fund, a similar process was followed during the tobacco divestment campaign in the 90s this led to the common practice of investment firms creating tobacco fund funds, imagine that fossil free, it is our goal that the building pressure of the global campaign to divest, will lead to fossil fuel free funds. and it gives the retirement board to reenvest in clean energy and jobs. and consider the options for reinvesting the funds for securities that will promote renewable energy and local jobs

and things that our city desperately needs. so i have a number of speakers i would like to call up. we have director jay huish from the retirement board we would like to call up first, mr. huish. i do not see him coming up. he was going to talk about the retirement board, social responsible policies and about the portfolio that we have in investment in the fossil fuel companies and i do not see him here and he is not coming up so we will go to the next speaker, i have a number of cards that i will call as well. i would like to call up jamie hen followed by antonio gehas. >> well, good morning, and thank you very much for hosting this hearing on fossil fuel investment and special thanks

for supervisor avalos and his staff for crafting the resolution. i am the co-founder for 350.organize an international climate campaign that is helping to lead this movement. we launched this last fall and already students at over 300 colleges and universities have taken up the effort and now it is spreading to cities and states as well. already more than 100 communities have started to push for divestment and as supervisor avalos mentioned this fall the mayor of seattle issued a declaration to pursue this goal. if i could have the folks to stand up who are here to support the resolution, you can do a good job. >> and you will see a lot of people are wearing these orange squares that emerged as a symbol for the student movement around the country. all of us here hope that san francisco will be the next city to pursue the fossil fuel

divestment. just last week, 561 local residents have signed on to a petition supporting the call and hopefully there will be many more. since i know that the board of supervisors has supported a number of initiatives i will not dwell on the risks that it poses to the community and the bay at large, but in the last year we, have already seen the early impacts of this crisis first hand from the historic wildfires from colorado to super storm sandy to effects right here in california. the divestment is a moral necessity, if it is wrong to wreck the planet it is wrong to profit from that wreckage, it is also a effective political tool, it shows the industry that is unable to continue with business as usual and speakers will highlight that it is economically feasible approach, as we look at the long term risks associated with the investments in coal, oil and gas and the benefits of investing in the more sustainable alternatives it is

clear that it is a wise action. >> as tutu won a nobel prize, the divestment provement played a key role in helping to liberate south africa and they understand the money even when they were not swayed by the dictates of mortality. we can join together as a world and put the pressure where it counts. we hope that san francisco will join this effort and that the board of sburps will move this resolution forward thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> thank you, our board rules do not allow clapping or applause from the audience, so that was a very spirited clap and applause, but we do allow people to express support that way. thank you. we appreciate your support on that. >> hi, thank you. >> thanks for holding this

hearing, and my name is antonia uhas and i am a author and journalist and i have invested for the new york times and cnn and three books, including the tyranny of oil and black tide the impact of the gulf oil spill and also worked for two members of congress, i traveled from louisiana to afghanistan to richmond, back here. to uncover what it means to live where the oil industry operates. i am here today, to urge you to divest from the fossil fuel industry. big oil is looking backward. divesting from clean energy and doubling down on dirty energy. investments in big oil, are an investment in increasingly dangerous past. san francisco should look forward to insure that the investments help to guarantee a clean future. last week, bp which famously

dubbed itself beyond petroleum announced the sale of the $3 billion wind energy business, eliminating... (inaudible) to become a more focused oil and gas company. it is not alone, after reaching a high of no more than 4 percent of total capitol expenditures in 2006 and 2007 big oil as a whole began rapidly divesting from alternative energy and most companies including our chevron from 0 to 2 percent range of total investments today. the reason, the policis that allowed the companies access to never before accessible or acceptable sources of oil. the industry able to inrage war, and the oil and gasoline prices sfai that way and more importantly that the benefits

of these prices go directly into big oil's pocket. these have allowed it to keep its back firmly pressed against the future. chevron became the world's second high ranked company in terms of valuation, the climb is attributed to just one thing, betting on oil, not on natural gas or energy, to carry it into the future, the oil resource base helped to beat in earnings per oil. >> not all oil is equal. betting on it today means increasingly deadly and dirty oil, oil to fight the wars and the disaster of the tar sands across north america into under regulated pipelines and trains that rupture on route to the golf coast to be shipped into other markets to feed other markets oil from below the surface using technology which fails and causes the worst

disasters in history, meanwhile big oil uses the profit to buy off the public process, to make... >> i have to stop you and i would like you to finish your comments. >> okay. >> thank you. >> big oil is turning backwards, and dark path and san francisco must divest if we want a future at all. >> thank you. >> before we go on to other members of the public to comment, we do have director from the retirement board here. mr. jay huish. thank you for coming. >> i apologize for being late and i was watching the hearing and i had no idea that the first three items would move that quickly. from the retirement system and i am the director and i would be happy to answer any questions that the committee might have. >> thank you for being here. i asked you to come to be ready to present on and discuss what the investment portfolio is for fossil fuel for the retiremen